


Rewind Reverse Remember

by Riana1



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Dragon Age Kink Meme, F/M, Kink Meme, Save Scumming, Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 05:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riana1/pseuds/Riana1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone had those weird dreams where you die-- the people around Hawke have been having them for years.</p><p>Hawke made a deal with time; she can relive events but the cost comes out of the years she was alotted. Every time some dies or gets crippled or blighted she uses up some of her lifespan to stop and save them.</p><p>And Kirkwall keeps killing them.</p><p>Grey Wardens get maybe thirty years--Hawke might not live to see thirty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Kink meme fill and my first.

I believe the future is only the past again, entered through another gate. ~Arthur Wing Pinero, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, 1893

Ten

You are the one to find your father dead in the orchard. He is sprawled under the apple tree, eyes open and glassy. You can only think inanely that dinner is getting cold and Mother made pie. The wind picks up and your father doesn't /move/.

You bend down to touch him and know the stiff twist of his muscles and the pallor of his skin and you are the one that help your father lay out the dead before the Sisters came and no matter what this will not be real unless you can touch your /father/--

There is some one behind you.


	2. Chapter 2

Nine

Bethany has secrets.

More secrets than she be able to keep in a three room hovel overstuffed with five people and more pride than peace. She can pretend not to hear her mother's tears. She can turn to the side and feign sleep as Carver fights his way out of another nightmare (she tried to talk to him about it over breakfast once-- Carver wouldn't meet her eyes for the entire day). She can ignore Gamlen's grumblings and remind herself her wine sodden souse of an uncle took them in and gave them a roof over their heads (one that leaks).

She can keep false cheer up best she can and try to be the sunshine that Varric cheekily named her. It is all she can do. Her sister will not let her to anything else. Her sister who has in the past months gone strange. Her sister who disappears for hours on end and comes back cover in blood and gold (none of ever hers-- the gold goes to Mother, Athernil, Varric, twelve months of service paid up in three, the blood Bethany asked Isabela once and never asked again.)

Her sister who brings her books from the Gallows (ones she just picked up like bread from the bloody bakery), and tells her to avoid certain streets at certain times. Her sister who loves her and looks after her (and never question that Bethany, she reminds herself, never question.)

Her sister who wakes her up before dawn and tells her to pack up a bag Bethany, you are going on a camping trip with the Dalish for two weeks. Bethany can feel the question burbling up from her throat (Why? Where are you going? Does Mother know? Does Carver? Is it that Deep Roads expedition Varric talked to you about? Are you crazy? Are you possessed? Are you a stranger hiding in my sister's skin?). Bethany dares a look into her sister's eyes and lowers her gaze to the floor, nodding silently while her sister turns to pull clothes out of a chest.

Bethany has secrets.

A few are her own.

She is an apostate.

She hates pie.

She is scared of her sister sometimes


	3. Chapter 3

Eight

Varric Tethras prides himself on his ability to pinpoint people accurately be it arrows or adjectives. It is what makes him a good businessman and a /great/ storyteller, at least until he meet Hawke.

The woman even ruined his entrance. He saw the pickpocket a mile away, had Bianca ready to go with a witty one liner and a debonair flare when the pickpocket flips over Hawke's hand and on to his back.

The woman even has the bloody cheek to introduce herself to him with a near perfect pitch of his own lines! Varric hadn't felt that tongue tied since he was eight years old, but really her smile did him in. Warm and welcoming as your own bed after a long hard road, if she were shorter and rounder, he would had proposed on the spot, maybe not marriage but a partnership that would have the Merchant's Guild cursing their ancestors back to the Stone.

To cut a cliche, it wasn't meant to be. Varric actually felt thankful for that most times; Hawke tended to be a little too intense for his taste. Kirkwall took to her like a drunk lordling before a whore: butt naked, bent over, and spilling sovereigns at her feet. Hawke not only knew when opportunity would knock but turn up for tea and small talk. Her instincts were uncanny and a bit unnerving truth be told, but Varric trusted his.

Everything in him said Hawke was faithful and fierce as the mabari her countrymen admire. She could shatter your spine in a swing but never stab you in the back. The way she warded and warred on the world for her family-- Varric frowned into his cup. Corff had to be getting stronger stuff if Varric was alliterating this much so early in the afternoon.

Varric sighed. Maybe he was losing his touch, Hawke disappears with nothing but a note saying don't worry and leaves all her Deep Roads funds with her mother and brother. A classic cut and run, but Hawke dropping off her sister with Daisy at the Dalish camp has him stumped. If Bethany were an elf, Varric could understand. Abandoning your family goes down a lot quicker when you leave them a small fortune and a safe haven for your apostate baby sister.

Varric swirled his ale around absent minded. Junior was overdue for a visit and venting session. Every other day the kid would huffed down to the Hanged Man and ask for news about his sister and bitch for a few hours about one abandoning him and the other balking about coming back to Kirkwall.

A thump on his table shocks Varric out of his thoughts.

He looks up and can only stare.

“Mind if I finish that off, Varric?” Hawke nimbly snaring his drink and quaffing it back in a go.

“Hello Hawke, how have you been Hawke, where have you been Hawke, and why is there a body sized sack on the table? I think that covers about all the basic conversation starters for the moment,” Varrc replies, leaning back on his chair.

“In short order, one, I be better after a few more drinks to numb my hand, two, the Deep Roads, three, about Isabela's weight in ancient dwarva treasure I need you to fence for me.” Hawke turns waving three fingers at Norah and pointing to Varric's cup.

“You spent the last two weeks in the Deep Roads.”

“Yup.”

“You spent the last two weeks in the Deep Roads and survived.”

“Yup.”

“You spent the last two weeks in the Deep Roads and survived and brought back a fortune.”

“I think we have establish that, where is Norah with my drinks?”

“You spent the last two weeks in the Deep Roads and survived and brought back a fortune. By. Yourself. Alone.”

“Yes, Varric, close your mouth. You look like my brother. Look it saves everyone the hassle of the darkspawn, dried nug bits, and weeks on end with both our brothers underground. Take thirty percent off top when you sell the stuff for me and even Bartrand can't be upset. A /fucking/ fortune falls into people's laps and they /still/ aren't satisfied,” Hawke tosses a sapphire onto Norah's serving plate and reaches for one of the three mugs with her right hand, grimacing then grabbing the nearest one with her left.

Varric opens his mouth but pauses taking in the hunched shoulders and downing ale before asking softly, “what happen to your hand, Hawke?”

Hawke looks him in the eye and gives him a spring sweet smile. “I broke my brother's nose.”

Hawke takes up the second mug and chugs half of it down. “My sweet baby brother decided to join the templars while I was gone. I took exception to that. More to the point, I punched him in the nose, told him to get one of his caged mages to fix it because I was done wasting my time on him and I wasn't going to take it back.”

Varric watches silently as Hawke chokes down her third mug and leans forward on her sack of treasure, eyes red rimmed and wet.

“I'm not taking it back, Varric.”

Varric pushes back his chair and puts out a hand to Hawke. “You don't have to, Hawke, but we do have to get this bag someplace safe before we both get knifed for it.”

Hawke gives him a shadow of a smile and stumbles to her feet, handing him the sack which actually does weight about as much as a drunken Isabela. “Don't worry Varric, nothing is going to happen to you. I'll spend my time keeping you safe, and Bethany safe, and mother, and Merrill, and 'Bela, and Fenris and even our turncoat bastard brothers and this new ale is reaaaaalllllly strong, ain't it.”

Varric grins as he helps Hawke drag the bag up to his suite. If the woman could only be shorter, he might be able to overlook the human bit, but Kirkwall wouldn't be standing if they did. It was for the best really.


	4. Chapter 4

seven.

 

Knight-Captain Cullen looked up from his desk and barely repressed an urge to hide underneath his chair and pray to the Maker. The Hawke woman was here again. The Hawke woman was /here/ again and he had just gotten the dreams under control. The week after her younger brother joined the Order had been... stressful for Cullen. The mild respect for the rather intense and sharp young woman had bloomed into an hothouse of obsession. A rounded of small talk in the courtyard with her had Cullen burning with images of her pouncing on him and devouring his mouth with gusto.

He barely knew the woman. Had a handful of conversations with her over the course of months. He shouldn't be imaging the bounce of her naked breasts as she rode him like a destrier on the Commander's desk, especially with her mouth full of the cock of the Grand Cleric's protégé! His deviance had to be apparent-- that poor Chantry brother practically ran when he saw Cullen during vespers.

Cullen was the Knight-Captain of Kirkwall. He survived the horrors of Kinloch. He will not fall. He fasted. He prayed. He purged himself of all debasing desires but his duty. He was the Sword of the Mak-- she brought the pirate with her.

Oh bugger.


	5. Chapter 5

six

"Merrill, don't worry about the Keeper.”

“I don't. I mean, I do, not about her complaining, but about her. She grumbles at me but she worries and doesn't want me to ruin things. I won't. I won't fail my people that way. But she doesn't see that and it is okay. My people, our history-- it is worth it, it is worth the risk even if the Keeper don't see it that way.”

“Merrill... Merrill, we all have someone we love to the point of ruin. Someone we would destroy ourselves for without hesitation. Don't worry. If I know anything it is that standing in front of fate: your life or the ones you love, there is no question. The Keeper-- I'll have a talk with her, you have me and I won't let anything happen to you."

“And you have us, Hawke.”

“And I have you, Merrill... and the others. I will not let any of you fall. Trust me.”

“I do, Hawke. You make things clearer, takes away doubt when everything is crazy and people are dying.”

“As long as we aren't the ones dying, I take that as a compliment.”


	6. Chapter 6

five.

I am writing this letter to you on your name day. Right now you are in the garden with your grandmother, I can hear her singing you a lullaby barely above the drone of the cicadas. Right now you are so small, your head fits in the palm of one my hands. I have wield a sword and shield against men and monsters alike but only once before has a fear pierced me as the moment your mother placed you in my arms and I looked in your blue eyes.

Someday you will be a woman and you will hear the stories. I pray to the Maker that they will only be stories to you, that the life you lead with be peaceful and plentiful in laughter and love. If not, I pray that your blood runs true and your enemies' blood runs before you.

This is story of the Blight. Not the one that shaped Ayesleigh. The seers and storytellers will tell you that tale soon enough. This is the story of a Blight in far south. This is the story of a refugees, a city of chains, and the divine hand of fate.

This is the story of how I meet your mother.

Or more accurately how I woke to a room full of slaughtered blood mages with the word, “Wakey, wakey, Keran nakey. Bethany is going to be a lucky woman. Now get this tunic and trousers on. Mind the blood on the wall, we have to get you back to your sister and mine and blood splatters always make them nervous. Even they aren't yours. Put your head between your knees and the nausea should pass. Good boy, you certainly listen better than Carver. Listen to me and everything will be right as rain.”


	7. Chapter 7

four

Fenris is a light sleeper. A necessary for a slave and even more for an escape one, but he doesn't hear Hawke until Isabella squeals right in his ear and kicks his leg in a vain attempt to free her other one from Hawke's tickling. He doesn't hear much but ringing after that.

“Okay lovebirds, get up the day is awastin'. 'Bela here is your shirt and a boot, We have to find the other one before we go up to the Arishock today.”

Fenris steals the sheet and watches Isabella sputter with a righteous wrath before paling as Hawke lifts up a book and a leaking sack. Silence stacks up in the room like a pile of corpses until Isabella reaches a hand-- “Hawke--”

“Here we are! Your other boot was behind the desk. Did you know there about a dozen cat's eyes behind here? I need to talk to Merrill about dropping them in your boots. It has to be a pain to find put one of these on and find a marble in your instep.”

“Hawke, I--”

“Isabella. You didn't. You wouldn't. Well, you would make a very dramatic entrance after the fact, but it is the thought that counts. You are going to face the Qunari and return the book and the thief's head with me and after they get on their boat, we can go pick up yours and get some shaved ice afterwards.”

Isabella finishes tugging her tunic down and squeezes her eyes shut as Hawke gives a one arm hug. Her eyes are suspiciously bright as she turns and blows a kiss at Fenris before walking out the door.

Fenris can only gape and stare at the empty doorway before warily turning his gaze to Hawke. The woman unnerves him like no one else not even Danarius. She was flippant, glib, and frighteningly accurate... about everything. If Fenris hadn't suffered years of her bloody cheer and incessant need to manage everyone around her, he would have suspected blood magic. Though blood magic out of a rogue with a taste for matchmaking and housekeeping-- not even the example of the Dalish witch was enough to dislodge the memory of coming back to find the mansion fixed, clean, with a pie on the table and the deed in his name. Even Aveline was grateful, though Hawke gracelessly all but grabbed Donnic, told him to make Aveline happy, and locked the two of them in her office.

Fenris felt a frisson down his spine as Hawke pinned a grin on her face and swung the leaking sack side to side. “Fenris, sorry to steal Isabela away, but you know it goes, work to do, a city to save, da da duh, but before I go I left you a present in front of the fireplace. Now I fully believe in bribery for personal betterment, it was how I was raised, so you will get your gift if you promise to be civil to Merrill from now on.”

Fenris let his lips curl. “She is a blood /mage/ Hawke, I--”

“Will learn to shut up and be civil. Everyone knows your opinion, Fenris. You are a free man and entitled to your thoughts, but you don't have to share them every bloody outing we go on. Merrill is /mine/. I will take care of her. You don't have to like her. You don't have to agree with her. You will however be civil towards her and call her by her given name. I am asking nothing more than a bit of common courtesy.”

Fenris can taste the insults dying on his tongue as Hawke's grin grinds down into a focused blankness. Hawke is rarely serious about anything or anyone but her threats to her family. Fenris glances to the swinging sack and the spot vacate by his lover and thinks about pie. He gazes straight at Hawke and nods once.

Hawke smiles at him, “go get your pants on and get your present. I promised you will like it.”

Then she is gone.

Fenris pulls his leggings on under the sheet and marches down to stairs. Snarling, he turns down the hall towards the fireplace, accursed, unnatural b--- blessed woman.

 

Fenris twists his mouth up with glee. Be civil to the ma-- no Merrill, be civil to Merrill no matter what inane, insane twatter comes out of her mouth if it makes Hawke happy. Happy enough to leave him gifts like this, the why and when can come later, but nothing is going to stop his joy at this sight-- Hadriana, bounded and gagged in magebane soaked rope staring up at him with terror filled eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

Three

He sees her sometimes in the market, a Champion for all she refuses the title, caring more for than coin than causes, he thinks bitterly-- he caught her eye once, and remembers the dreams of years ago, a narrative piecemeal from flashing eyes, snippets of stories, and a desperate need for companionship. A kindred spirit indeed, Anders thinks before bowing to the pressure of the one in his head; even with anonymous benefactors, the clinic consumes all his efforts the underground leaves behind.

He is so very tired.


	9. Chapter 9

Two

Ashalle worries. The clan has lingered too long in the shade of the Sundermount and the shadow of that accursed walled city. The city nearly burned but the Keeper says stay. So the clan stays.

Ashalle worries. The question lingers long on the lips of many but none dare breathe a word to the wind. That the Keeper holds the clan here not out of a Keeper's conviction but a mother's heart. She raised that foolish girl since she was four summers old after all.

Then the Hawke came with their First, the white haired warrior, and a red headed elf.

Ashalle worries. She knows the finality of this scene. She held her own heart-child once that closely before releasing her to care of shemlin warrior to only to die by archdemon might and hero right. Though the Hawke is wolf hearted and wily enough to make her enemies die in her stead, or at least wise enough to deliver an injured fawn to a doe before spiriting the yearling away. She watches the awkward embrace of the warrior and the red headed elf and the curling of the Keeper's hand under the young woman's waist. She watches the Hawke whispering into the First's ear and the roses blooming on the pale elf's check.

Ashalle worries. Pol has been with them for years but the stink of shemlin rule still creeps up from time to time. This new First, if Ashalle has any judgment, nearly has drowned in despair and debasement before coming to the clan, given the cowed bent of her spine. But bent is not broken, the clan will make do as they always do. She watches the Hawke bend a strand of hair back behind the former First's ear with tenderness, and does not worry. She hears the stories and seen the Hawke. You might as well worry about getting wet in a rainstorm, some things were inevitable; Ashalle walks forward to make welcome to her new clan sister and farewell to the old.

Maybe Pol's tale of a recovered Elvenhome weren't complete poppycock.


	10. Chapter 10

one

 

Time will tell; I will not  
spend all the years that I got  
this is a promise that I will keep  
kiss my eyes, lay me to sleep

Fate will bend; I'll be brave  
for all the souls that I'll save  
I promise to lie, I promise to leap  
kiss my eyes, lay me to sleep

Learn to fall, learn to fly  
Hold on tight until you die  
Hold to laughter until you weep  
kiss my eyes, lay me to sleep

\--- a gloze noted in the margins of a first addition of the Tethras novella, Love in Lowtown, confirmed as belonging to Besra Hawke circa Marlowe Dumar late reign. Cannot be post Magil Schism as evidence of abandonment of Amell estate and family lines foundation in Rivain mid Dragon Age at least. Chantry records spotty at best for early Saemus Dumar; records confirm Carver Hawke as Templar recruit but not ultimate fate-- member of Mage Underground? Background of seneschal, guard captain reports, and noble private diaries support importance Amell-Hawke family centering upon Besra Hawke. Indirect evidence of Dalish paramour suggests connection to founding of modern Elven nations. Reference to names of Merrill, Wolf, Captain Isabella historically accurate but remain inconclusive due to hagiology-- how to separate meat from myth? Note-- pick up salami from deli tonight. Waiting on access to the Tethras Society and the  
archives in the Aerary. Meet advisor at the Gallos Plaza. Try new tea room. Must ask if new elven Queen-consort in Fereldan can use as part of retrospective; use wedding coverage as support for dissertation, must find out where those shoes can be bought.

\--- Leli Vallen, essay notes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure what happens to everyone. 
> 
> Except Carver gets shanghaied and locked in the bowls of Isabela's ship until three days out at sea ultimately.


End file.
